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Badlands Wars
The Badlands Wars, also known as The Prospector's War and the Truesilver Wars, were a series of minor conflicts and skirmishes in the region of Khaz Modan known as The Badlands, taking place almost ninety years before the Orcish arrival on Azeroth (89-72 BOA). Enterprising Dwarven, Gnomish, and Goblin prospectors were drawn to the region following a quick succession of large Truesilver and Gold vein discoveries in parts of the Badlands. An armed expedition organized by the Venture Company entered the area almost immediately and continued to operate until its withdrawal in 72 BOA. Though the Venture Company's official withdrawal is often noted as the proper end of the Wars, conflict between miners and bandits would continue for nearly a decade after. Veinstrikes (89 - 87 BOA) Prospectors had been drawn to the Badlands for many centuries prior to the Wars for its rich mineral content and notable presence of gold and truesilver veins. Primarily Dwarven and Goblin origin, the prospectors were mostly loners who sought the company of the empty landscape and the sound of potential riches being drawn from the earth. Eighty-nine years before the opening of the Dark Portal, known infamously as the Year of the Lucky Strikes, six large truesilver and gold veins were struck by prospectors in a two month period. Word spread quickly and the claims were soon opened up as full-scale mining operations. Eventually they would be known as: * Mine Dwallen (Gold) (Venture Company) * Mine Gida (Truesilver) (Venture Company) * The Fuull Claim (Truesilver) (Ironforge) * The Hredd Claim (Truesilver) (Ironforge) * Feller's Mine (Gold) (Unsold) * The Cragland Trap (Truesilver) (Venture Company) Though two of the claims (Fuull and Hredd) were sold to the Kingdom of Ironforge, two truesilver claims were bought by the Venture Company of Kezan. Quick to jump at the potential financial gains, the Company sent in a Legion to guard their mining operations and soon began to muscle their way into the other large veins. Eventually, the Legionnaires began to harass and even kill lone prospectors who were in potential profitable areas. Friction was immediate but without an organized front the prospectors suffered the harassment for a time. Nearly two years passed after the Venture Company's arrival in the Badlands before the prospector's friction towards the Company boiled over into conflict. As they expanded their reach, forcing prospectors to work for them or be removed forcibly from their claims, more prospectors began to band together for safety from the Venture Company thugs. Resistance was done purely in self-defense until the brutal slaying of a respected Dwarven prospector named Midden 'Old Middy' Slammerhand. Assault on Mine Gida (87 BOA) Mine Gida was the first large truesilver vein discovered and the second major claim of the 'Lucky Strikes'. Struck by Old Middy (and named after his deceased wife), he sold it to the Venture Company for a handsome profit but remained in the region hoping to serve as a voice for the other prospectors to the Company. His death at the hands of Gida's overseer, Tobin Gearflank, sparked a conspiracy to avenge Old Middy's death. One-hundred prospectors, mostly Dwarves but numerous Goblin, Human, and Gnome as well, rallied together to assault the mining operation at Gida. Destroying mining equipment, setting fire to the Company's buildings, and stealing cartloads of ore, the prospector's assault on the mine surprised the Venture operation. Rifleman lined up along the ridges overlooking the area, hiding among cactus, jagged rocks, and sage brush, picking off Bruisers from a distance while homemade mortars launched smoke grenades onto the site. Eventually running off the mine workers, Tobin was cornered and the prospectors hung the overseer from the mine's entryway. His body was left to hang for several days while the rest of the dead lay rotting in the dry heat, with vultures, coyotes, and other beasts picking at their corpses. The workers returned with more Venture Company Legionnaires several days later expecting a fight with the prospectors only to find Gida abandoned, save for the corpses of the fallen Company workers, including Tobin. The mine began operating again that evening after new equipment was brought in. The aftermath of this was increased tension between prospectors and the Company across the region. More lone prospectors were indiscriminately harassed in an attempt to learn the identities of Gida's assailants. Increasing numbers of prospectors found beaten and half-dead caused alarm for loners out in the hills. Though some joined the Company's employment, many more sided with the unorganized Prospector resistance. Several miners returned to Ironforge to lobby for the Kingdom's official support in removing the Venture Company from the Badlands but Senatorial bickering (and in one scandal, Venture Company bribery) left the region unsupported through official channels. Citizens of the Kingdom, hearing the plight of those in the Badlands, began to ride out to assist the beleaguered miners against the Venture Company through force of arms. Rise of Lethlor Camp (86 - 85 BOA) As the Venture Company fortified its position in the far western portion of the Badlands, the prospectors began to flock to the eastern ravines for protection. One major ravine known as Lethlor became a major tent city for the prospectors and the newly arrived gunslinging 'newbeards' from the Kingdom of Ironforge. The 'newbeards' became the backbone of the Badlands militia, defending the prospecting groups from Venture Company thuggery and organizing the defense of Lethlor. However, with the arrival of the newbeards came a new wave of bandits. While bandits had been a burden to the prospectors for years, the Lucky Strikes attracted them in greater droves. Some opted for employment with the Venture Company while many simply assaulted miners on their own at opportune moments. Lethlor Ravine's growth attracted them in great numbers for the anonymity and easy access to slip away unnoticed into the crags. Lethlor Camp was prone to fires. The dry weather, heavy sunlight, and general drunkenness that followed after a hard day of work was often the cause of burning tents and burning beards in Lethlor, though the bandits were known to set fires themselves to steal away goods, ore, nuggets, and ingots in the confusion. Lethlor Camp would persist as a tent city for over a decade after the Venture Company's withdrawal from the Badlands in 72 BOA. It would slowly become less populated until finally ceasing to exist in the mid 50s BOA. Some hovels had been carved into the Ravine's walls and would persist for many more decades until the Cataclysm, which saw many of the Badland's southern craglands and ravines crumble. These hovels collapsed in on themselves in the upheaval, leaving little evidence behind. Venture Expansion (85 - 80 BOA) While the company's assailing of prospectors continued, overseers and the Company's own miners sought out new claims of their own, expanding along the western edges of the Badlands. Numerous small-scale mining operations sprung up over a three year period in the western half of the Badlands, with more bruisers, grenadiers, and riflemen on the furthest mining pits. Bandits began to target the Venture mines on the westernmost edge of the Badlands where few, if any, of the Venture's legionnaires were stationed. While rapid expansion allowed the Venture Company to swallow nearly half of the territory in the Badlands, the bandits prevented further expansion as the Company's legionnaires scrambled to protect the mining pits in the far west, leaving those in the central regions (and thus, closer to the prospector's territories) exposed. While the Company raked in profits from these numerous small scale mining pits, the prospectors had begun more frequent attacks on their larger operations. Accompanied by the newbeard militias and a menagerie of mercenaries from Ironforge and various human Kingdoms, the Prospectors took advantage of the Venture Company's bandit dilemma and destroyed numerous central Badlands pit mining encampments. Some of these mining operations were destroyed outright while more extensive operations were booby-trapped with explosives and scorpids. These types of attacks would continue until the early 70s, ceasing once the Venture mines were abandoned. Though some were taken up by newbeard miners, most were left alone by the prospectors in the years after the Wars. Some sites were preserved and cataloged by the Explorer's League as historically important sites, though many had long since been pilfered of anything valuable or were destroyed outright during the Cataclysm. Battle for the Public The wars were not unknown to the general public living in the mountains of Dun Morogh. Information and early photographic images were disseminated by news outlets in Ironforge, Gnomeregan, and other portions of Dun Morogh. The icon of the era that won the hearts and minds of the public imagination was a lone prospector fending off a gang of Goblin thugs with only a pickaxe and his fists. However romantic the idea was to Dwarves and Gnomes in Dun Morogh, more often the prospectors fought with makeshift axes, knives, firearms, and crude explosives. While pickaxes were used in some skirmishes between individuals early on in the wars, the rise of the Venture Company in the region made use of pickaxes for larger skirmishes ineffective. Despite this, the image endured and eventually bled into Dwarven and Gnomish entertainment industries. Aside from plays and stories told by beardlings and tavernseekers, lithographs made by Gnomish and later Goblin merchants exchanged hands, being placed on walls of stone hovels. Often families of miners in the Badlands would pay to have images of their loved ones made, with hundreds of Gnomes making their way to the region with then-current technology in tow. While initially considered high value targets, bandits later avoided these traveling Gnomish lithographers, who, knowing full well about the stories of bandit raiders in the Badlands, came well-armed and prepared to shoot down those who came near to their small caravans. Gnomish sharpshooters became feared for their skill and lack of mercy towards bandits. Battles in the Backlands (79 - 76 BOA) The southern Badlands was a treacherous and remote area of the Badlands. Often called the Backlands, it was considered the playground of experienced prospectors due to the immense riches it was said to hold to those lucky enough to trek into it and return alive. Intricate trails along cliffs were carved by miners over the centuries that few inexperienced with the Badlands could be able to identify. These 'Badroads' were the lifeline for many prospectors looking for a truly magnificent find and were for many the last trail they would take. Unknown numbers had fallen to their deaths in the crags and ravines of the Backlands, unable to be retrieved and their bones remaining scattered across the rock for eternity. While initially ignored by the Venture company, the prospector's continued resistance to their efforts drew the ire of one Goblin overseer named Nickel Brickbuck. Nickel, the Overseer of Mine Dwallen, had begun the building and preparation of a small airforce to take control of the Badland's skies. But as the importance of the Backlands to the prospectors became apparent to the Venture Company, Nickel sought to break the spirit of the Prospectors and destroy potential rivals in one move. With thousands of pounds of explosives prepared and equipped for airdrops from his airforce of primitive gyrocopters, Brickbuck enacted Operation Minedrop. With a force of only twenty or so flying machines, Nickel bombarded the Backlands with bombing runs over the course of a month before resistance was finally felt. Mortar teams and miners flocked to the Backlands to help save the backland prospectors. Carving out passageways through deep rock, the backlanders were able to survive numerous attacks while mortar teams and riflemen began to fire on the attacking flying machines. Though only two machines were actually brought down, the pilots suffered a high casualty rate from the shrapnel grenades launched into the air by the mortars. This war in the backlands would continue until Brickbuck's death at the hands of a bandit raid on Dwallen. With many of the flying machines destroyed and Brickbuck's plan having no real effect on the prospectors after a three year period, Operation Minedrop was halted and discontinued. Though many of the old Badroads had been destroyed, the new tunnels served the same purpose but with greater safety and security for the prospectors. Their introduction to save the miners of the Backlands ultimately brought an end to the mystique of the Backlands, though the spirit of resistance and camaraderie to save their fellow miners continued to inspire the prospectors of the Badlands for decades after. Feller's Mine (75 BOA) The Gnome Feller Highsprock had made his claim to fame by becoming the number five of the Lucky Strikes in 89 BOA. For thirteen years he and his small crew of Gnomes and his Goblin friend, Manny Rancid, had remained outside of the conflict between the prospectors and the Venture Company. In 76 BOA, just a few months before the death of Nickel Brickbuck, Feller died and his mining operation became a point of contention between his crew. A year after Feller's death, Feller's wife Lati decided to sell her husband's operation to the Venture Company, while Manny Rancid sought to keep the Venture Company from taking over Feller's Mine. Feller and Manny had both been friends of Old Middy Slammerhand, both of them disgusted with the Venture Company for his slaying. When Lati Highsprock sold the mine to the Company, Manny defected to the side of the prospectors. Hoping to prevent the rise of a Venture operation so far east, the prospectors took over Feller's Mine and awaited the Venture Company's legionnaires. Days later, when the Company's thugs arrived, shots rang out and the battle for Feller's Mine began. With hundreds of prospectors circled around the Venture Company's forces, firing from all sides down into a narrow ravine that would become known as Bloodbath Path. Manny Rancid was wounded by a Venture bruiser but survived the battle. Mrs. Highsprock, who had left the territory before the battle took place, disappeared somewhere along the route to Ironforge and was never heard from again. Feller's Mine remained under Rancid's control for a decade before the mine collapsed with Rancid inside. Foul play had been assumed but any proof was buried with Rancid himself. The Fading Light of the Day (75 - 72 BOA) After the Battle at Bloodbath Path, the Venture Company's mining operations would continue for three more years. However, with mounting pressure from the Senate of Ironforge, the rising cost of bandit attacks, and continued assaults by the prospectors and their allies, the Venture Company eventually closed down their mining operations in 72 BOA, after nearly 17 years of operations in the region. Costs had become too high for profits to be made and the Company began an immediate withdrawal of personnel and equipment from the Badlands. Throughout the Badlands the prospectors celebrated this as a final victory over a great evil. The immediate aftermath, however, was a renewed chaos of the early years after the Lucky Strikes. The Aftermath While historians often note the Badlands Wars as a conflict between prospectors fighting for their rights as miners and a notorious Goblin company looking to stripmine Dwarven lands that ended when the Venture Company finally withdrew, the conflicts continued for many years after the supposed end of the wars. Though arrival of militia trickled to nothing and widescale attacks on mines ceased, bandits continued to plague the prospectors after the Venture Company's presence was immediately removed from the region. The few fledgling settlements that had formed in this era became immediate high value targets and were assailed to such a degree that they ceased to be by the end of 60 BOA. With only the prospectors left and the towns destroyed by their own greed, the bandits eventually moved on into other parts of Khaz Modan and into the wider Eastern Kingdoms. The Badlands Wars came to a close after a long thirty years. In this time period, prospectors regaled stories of the era to wandering travelers and those who could write wrote vivid exaggerations of the period for their memoirs, muddying the truth of the time period of the Badlands' history known to many as its 'Truesilver Age'. Category:Wars Category:Mining Category:Kingdom of Ironforge Category:Events